Tim Shakespeare of Healing Wave Chiropractic, in NSW, was once a board member of the Chiropractors’ Association of Australia NSW chapter. That was until the CAA NSW took proper notice of his arrogant public anti-vaccinationism, and his bragging about secretly entering public hospitals to perform his voodoo without the permission of any treating practitioners or other hospital staff.

This image hammered the final nail in his coffin. It’s one of my favourite all time images. He even tagged me in it:

Because vaccines are exactly the same as heroin. “Brett Hill…likes this”.

Anyway, not one to take any notice of being punted from the CAA NSW board, or warnings from the CAA National board to stay away from anti-vaccinationists, Shakespeare has been seen commenting on the page of the ugly anti-vaccination pressure group, the Australian Vaccination Skeptics Network, as well as posting a link to his own blog on the AVN page. This is from October 2013:

Anyway, what got me to including Shakespeare again was something I noticed today. He is giving a talk in one week with renowned US anti-vaccinationst Tim O’Shea. Yes, the same Tim O’Shea who used to provide immunisation training CPD points for Australian chiropractors, as organised by the CAA, until it was pointed out to the community, when it was then promptly dropped (excellent work from Amy Corderoy). And the organisation who is holding the seminar is none other than the Dead Chiropractic Society, run by the notoriously deranged anti-vaccinationist, chemtrail-hating, David Icke-citing, germ theory denying, NWO soft-kill and depopulation espousing Billy DeMoss:

Thank you Tim, Billy, Jen, Simon F, etc for taking your colleagues, and an entire profession, which has fought hard for credibility, a place as experts in non surgical spine and nervous system care and members of a wider health care industry and throwing it out the door to suit your narrow minded, quasi religious and juvenile conspiracy theories. If you read this – and I hope you do – remind yourself that there are a great many in this profession who despise the self serving salesmanship which has passed for ethics in recent years and the equally vapid misunderstanding of the role of scientific research.

Thanks Sue. This is part of that process. For example I chose not to rejoin the CAA because the attitude is to ‘work together’ in response to political medical opposition to our profession and I understand that. Political medicine has a track record of stepping on toes not just with us but even with pharmacy (something we find difficult to accept, we like to feel set upon, it’s become a theme). My position is simply that we are ethically wrong. Political medicine may continue to marginalise for economic reasons but their beef is ethical. We refuse to admit that due to our choice to base ourselves upon ‘vitalism’ (which is a faith), we defuse rational scientific enquiry, permit and nurture the spread of unsubstantiated practices and opinions and lie to the public. We damage our own clinical expert skills and it’s like watching a drowning man refuse a lifejacket. The CAA refuses to stand up to unethical practices because it is primarily composed of supporters of the same. I used to allow it as well in that “oh well, they’re not hurting anyone” soft headed way, and that’s true – most are well meaning (some work tirelessly to defend my livelihood), but in truth we are lying to people for no other reason than we can’t be bothered to think. We’re too afraid to take the skeletons out of their closets. I mean some of the claims out there are extraordinary and well patronised. The worst effect is on the capacity of chiropractors to diagnose or read and understand what good research is. It’s appalling. We deserve the boot. Another organisation – COCA – has a different attitude. They respect rational standards.